Only Half
by Card Carrying Villains
Summary: The realization that Gamzee has voices in his head and, when sober, is prone to bipolar personality issues catches the attention of Sollux, who decides that the last thing Gamzee needs right now is to be alone. He should know. Sollux/Gamzee. By Spades


Hey guys, I'm Spades of the CardCarryingVillains, and I'm back with more Homestuck crack pairing madness. I'm well aware of the fact that this fic is sorta bizarre; I wrote it during American History class; it's _going_ to be a little odd. (Hell, I don't even know how this idea managed to come from history class. Don't ask.)

Anyway. Yeah. Have some cute.

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><p>Sollux: Console other schizophrenic nutcase.<p>

"So he says there's voices in his head," Karkat explains in his sharp, uncontrollably volumed voice. "He calls them the Mirthful Messiahs. Something from his nutjob religion."

You are Sollux Captor, and you are letting things sink in. Feferi is dead, which you should be more upset about. Eridan is dead, which you should be happier about. Vriska is dead and you don't care one way or another about it. Tavros, Nepeta and Equius are dead, and somehow you're more cut up about this (maybe because it's more of a shock; you didn't even know it'd happened until someone was informing you they'd located the severed heads), but at the same time you're not messed up about it at all. Despite your recent loss of sight, the bifurcation is still an intrinsic part of you.

"He's basically got split personalities," Karkat continues. "Only he's aware of them and in a less-enraged state of mind, he's currently convinced that they're not part of him. He doesn't want to believe that a different side of his personality could be so fucked up as to kill and behead his friends." Karkat bites his lip nervously. He pities Gamzee hard, and you can tell. You wonder how long he's been denying his pale feelings, and you figure since it's Karkat, he probably hadn't acknowledged that they even existed and subconsciously went out of his way to contradict them until tonight.

You are not sure if you pity Gamzee or hate him. You want to hate him because he killed Nepeta and Equius and made an attempt at adding yourself and the others to the body count. Because he would've killed you without hesitation. But at the same time you want to pity him, because you _know_ what it feels like to have voices in your head that aren't you (even if Gamzee's may well be him). You _know_ what it feels like to be whipped back and forth between one personality and another until you can't remember which one you think is actually you.

Bifurcation sucks, you decide.

"Where is he?" you ask (you do not miss your lisp one bit). Karkat gives you a growl as if to say _why the actual fuck do you of all trolls happen to give a shit and a half about this_ and you shoot back a look that says _you might be his moirail but I know how he's feeling right now._ You vocalize this, albeit a little more on edge and impatient, because you finally have someone to talk to about the insanity wrapped up in your head, someone who knows how you feel. "I don't care what quadrant you've gotten yourself into, KK. I'm the one who knows what it feels like to have voices in your head and all that crazy shit that I've already been dealing with my whole fucking life. I want to go talk to him."

"Sollux, That Might Not Be The Best Course Of Action At The Moment," Kanaya interjects in her softly level voice (you never really realized how unique and indicative voices can be). She places a hand on your shoulder, which you assume should startle you more based on her new transformation. Terezi tells you she's glowing, but you still can't see shit and you havent' figured out how Terezi uses her other senses to see yet, so you have no idea if your jadeblood friend has actually become a rainbow drinker or if the others are just fucking with you. "Gamzee May Need More Time To Himself To Calm Down."

"Trust me," you counter. "If it were me going through split-personality whiplash for the first time -which I've actually done, mind you- I wouldn't want to be alone. I've already done that alone once. Let me go console him."

You can't see, but you can imagine Kanaya and Karkat's faces (Terezi's is probably blank or she's spacing out, uninvolved in the problem) as they turn this course of action over in their heads. Kanaya probably sees all the pros of allowing you to help Gamzee understand what's going on with his own mind. Karkat likely can't see anything but the cons, being overprotective of his new moirail and worried that Gamzee might snap again and likely sure that you're going to fuck things up worse.

"Karkat, I think you should let him talk to Gamz," Terezi's windchime-in-a-hurricane voice pipes up. "I mean, it can't hurt to try."

Karkat growls angrily… but resignedly. You feel a comfortably warm hand on your arm and nails digging into your skin just hard enough to hurt without bleeding, and Karkat drags you up out of your chair and suddenly you're going through a transportalizer. You're dragged down the hallway briefly by a still-growling Karkat and pinned unceremoniously to a wall. You wish you knew which wall so you could at least have a guess as to whether Karkat was taking you to see Gamzee or taking you somewhere else to lock you up where you couldn't do any damage.

"Sollux, you nublicking fuckwit bulgesucker," he roars suddenly, fingernails digging into your shoulders. "You better know what the fuck you're doing, because if you go in there and get yourself killed by him, I…."

"You'll do a pirouette off the fucking handle. Yes, I know."

"No, you fuckass moron," he sighs. "I don't know what I'll do if you die. We've already lost enough people tonight, and you… If you died, Sollux, I…" Karkat gets quieter with every word until his voice finally dwindles down to nothing. He lets go of your shoulder and you feel his heat recede from you.

"KK?"

"Don't do something stupid," you hear him whisper. Karkat whispering scares you a little bit. He takes you lightly by the wrists and drags you over to another transportalizer, at which point he lets go. "He's in his room, okay? This one'll take you there. Just…"

"KK, chill out, okay? It's okay." And you vanish away and leave him behind to worry.

You only feel half terrible about leaving him to freak out about you on his own.

You may not be able to see, but you know you're in Gamzee's room as soon as you arrive because it still smells like sopor slime and high-fructose corn syrup. You step off the transportalizer and trip over an empty Faygo bottle, landing hard on the ground with a loud "FUCK."

"Who the motherfuck's there?" Gamzee's lilting, rhythmic voice -his normal voice- floats over to you.

"It's Sollux," you announce, picking yourself up off the floor. "Where are you?"

A voice far too close to you says, "Right here, bro." You whirl around to face him (it's an impulse; you can't see him anyway) and run into him on the way. He braces his hands on your shoulder and you're automatically nervous about it. "What'cha doing all up in my respiteblock, motherfucker?"

"Came to talk," you mumble, and then repeat yourself louder and more confidently. "I came to talk to you," you say. "Because I think I understand what you're going through."

"What the motherfuck do you mean, bro?" You don't dignify this with an answer; you reach up and grab his hands off of your shoulders. You lead him with one hand outstretched in front of you until you bump into a wall, and then you drag him down with you. You lean up against the wall and assume Gamzee's doing the same next to you. He hasn't yet let go of your hand. You're not sure how you feel about this.

Stupid fucking bifurcation does crazy shit to your feelings on basically everything.

"This is about me getting my crazy on earlier, isn't it?" Gamzee wonders aloud. "Shouldn't this be up to my motherfucking best bro Karkat to be getting all up and worried about, you know?"

"Yes, that's technically true," you agree, and then you realize that while Karkat knows you're completely insane and bipolar and Kanaya's smart enough that she figured it out on her own, you never saw any reason to inform Gamzee of it. He'd probably have forgotten it ten minutes later. He consistently forgets that Terezi is blind, after all. "Gamzee, I believe I understand what you're feeling right now."

"What the motherfuck do you mean?" Gamzee shifts closer, like he's trying to listen closer. His natural body temperature is much colder than Karkat's, you notice. It gives you a pretty good hint as to your loud leader's potential blood color. You flinch as Gamzee rests his head on your shoulder, and you nod to yourself as you take personal note for the first time of exactly how little sense of personal space Gamzee has.

"I mean that I understand what having a split personality feels like, you absolute dipshit." And you realize you probably shouldn't make Gamzee angry or insult him, but he calls everyone 'motherfucker' so he can't really complain. "And I understand the insanely horrible whiplash when you switch from one to another. And it's scary. You don't know what's happening to yourself and your head hurts and your heart hurts more and you don't know what's up or what's real or who you even are and it's-"

"Stop," Gamzee says suddenly, desperately, and you wish so badly you could see the look on his face, or could smell it like Terezi, maybe taste it, but you don't really want to taste blood and facepaint.

"You okay?" you ask. Gamzee doesn't answer. "Gamzee?" He still doesn't answer -at least not verbally. His hand tightens around yours and he grabs your other arm and yanks you roughly up against himself, slips his arms behind your back and buries his face in your neck. "Okay, you're not okay. It's cool," you say, adjusting yourself and somehow ending up haphazardly sprawled over his lap. You're only half sure you want to move immediately away. "I told you I know how this feels, right?"

"You did up and say that, didn't you…" he murmurs. "And you're right. It's motherfucking scary all up in my think pan right now, bro. It's all jumbled and the voices won't shut the motherfuck up and they're loud and they're telling me to kill you." That sends a shiver down your spine and you begin to seriously reconsider this whole venture until Gamzee says, "I don't wanna motherfucking kill anyone anymore. I don't wanna be that other me. He was really getting his murder on all up in here, like nobody's business, and I didn't do any of that but I remember doing it and motherfuck, I'm so confused…"

"I know, I know…" you reassure him. "And guess what: it really is scary and confusing and you don't know who the fuck you are." You're not sure why you're suddenly so gentle, and my god, through the haze of violent hate you feel for the side of Gamzee that's an insane murderer, you pity this scared, confused, sane Gamzee so hard right now it almost hurts. You run your fingers through his hair in the most soothing way you know how to. "But guess what else: I'm not gonna leave you alone to go crazy, okay? I know how fucking terrifying it is to be alone and not know who you are, so I'm gonna stay here and I'm not gonna leave and every time you get scared that you don't know who you are or which you is real, I'll remind you who you are."

Gamzee doesn't respond verbally yet again, but his hands loosen their grip on your shirt and his body becomes a little less rigid and his face moves away from your neck. You think he's going to let you go, or let you off his lap at the very least, but instead he leaves you right where you are and presses his forehead to yours and says softly, scared, "Can you all up and make me forget the bad me instead?"

"What-" you start to say, and then you realize he doesn't actually mean you should hit him over the head so hard he gets amnesia; he just wants a distraction. And you have to admit that in the state he's in, maybe that's the best thing for it. You remember the first time going through one of your bipolar spells, you'd tried coding to distract yourself, tried video games, tried bitching at Karkat 'til he'd yelled, even tried roleplaying with Nepeta in the hopes that it'd distract you.

You are suddenly very nervous all of a sudden. You're mentally torn about every move you make as you slip one arm around Gamzee's waist and you slide your other hand awkwardly out of his hair and slide it along his neck until you find his face. He shivers and starts to mumble something that you decide to let go in one ear and right out the other as you use this hand to pull your faces together and kiss him carefully.

You think you really despise being blind, because you miss and end up kissing him just below the eye, where Karkat tells you Nepeta managed to get him with her claws. He flinches, probably in pain, and then you feel him thread his fingers through yours, pull your hand away from his face, and then suddenly he's the one with his lips on yours.

You have never been more confused by sloppy makeouts in your life. (You choose to ignore the fact that you've never actually experienced sloppy makeouts in your life before). Half of you wants to melt against Gamzee because he's damn good at what he's doing and besides, you understand his emotions so well right now and you feel not sympathy, but actual _empathy_. Half of you wants to stab your nails into his skin and bite his lips and draw as much blood as possible, because that's what kismesis means. You have a distinct feeling this would be detrimental to getting sane Gamzee back for good, however, so you restrain yourself from that and go for the pity side of things rather than the hate. Roll with it. Let it happen. Make it transpire. Don't stop now, you couldn't if you wanted to (not that you want to).

The two of you break apart after a while and simply sit there, holding onto each other. You really wish you could see the look on Gamzee's face right now, but blindness really does suck even more than bifurcation, you decide. Maybe Terezi really can teach you how to taste colors. You're sure that with the crazy clown makeup (if he's even still wearing that shit after having such a huge crisis of faith), Gamzee's lips would probably taste like marshmallow.

Neither of you speak for a very long time.

And then, "By the way, Sol-bro… what the motherfuck did you come in here for to begin with? I all up and forgot just now."

What do you know, you think. He actually forgot what we were talking about before.

"Uh-oh," Gamzee says suddenly. "I think I'm startin' to get my remembering on about why I wasn't so happy before. Let's keep with the forgetting, okay?" And he's kissing you again and you're probably not going to be leaving anytime soon if this is the way Gamzee wants to deal with himself right now, but you're pretty sure you're okay with that. You're okay with a lot of things recently. You let things happen around you, to you, and eventually the two of you fall asleep on the floor in each others' arms.

You're only half worried about Gamzee running into Nepeta and Equius inside a dreambubble. Only half.

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><p>Okay, I just re-read this. This fic is as bipolar as Sollux himself; it keeps switching from comedy to angst to wtf and I don't even know what I'm saying anymore.<p>

I'm just gonna stop.

Reviews will be fed into the quantum transducer and used to generate plot.


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